


The Things You Said When...

by LaTessitrice



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 23:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 7,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6259246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaTessitrice/pseuds/LaTessitrice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of minifics based on prompts. Various pairings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wintershock: Things you said while you were drunk

Regrets, Darcy has them. They’re there before she even remembers why, before she even breaches the barrier between sweet, wonderful sleep and the hell that is waking up with a hangover. There’s something she shouldn’t have done last night and oh god now she remembers.

It’s worse than the pounding in her head, the sandpaper in mouth, the disquiet in her stomach. It’s worse than the way daylight stabs into her brain like a laser when she risks opening her eyes, or the way the room spins when she changes her mind and buries her face in the pillow.

Someone in the room clears a throat and she freezes, instinctively gripping the blankets tight around her like they’ll protect her from the monster. Why is there someone in her bedroom?

At least they aren’t in the bed with her.

“I thought could use some water and painkillers.” The voice is deep, grumbly. Amused and yet uncertain. She knows it well. She still doesn’t know why Bucky’s in her room.

She makes a noise that might suffice as agreeing to the offer and simultaneously thanking him. Or it may just sound like a whine of pain. She’d try to speak, but she’s worried if she opens her mouth last night’s booze will make a bid for freedom.

She doesn’t hear him cross the room, but the curtains swish across the rail and the light beyond her eyelids dims. Then there’s the clink of a glass hitting her bedside table, pills being pressed into her hand, and the bed dips as he sits down on it.

“You should take them,” he says. She opens her eyes, grateful that she isn’t blinded this time, except he’s right there, expression laced with concern. “And then when you’re feeling better, we should talk.”

Darcy does not want to talk. Darcy is considering packing her bags and fleeing to Timbuctoo, where she can nurse her crush on him in peace, instead of blurting it out when she’s had too much of Nat’s best vodka.

She avoids his eyes, tossing back the pills and accepting the glass that he lifts towards her outstretched hand. The cool water is perhaps the best thing she’s ever drunk, ungluing her tongue from the roof of her mouth.

“I’m sorry if I said anything embarrassing last night,” she croaks. “Feel free to ignore me, most people do.”

He cocks his head and regards her, making her very aware of how she definitely didn’t take her make-up off last night. It’ll be smeared all across her face. And her hair will be a tangle of frizz right now. So sexy.

“I don’t want to ignore you,” he replies. “I just didn’t want to take advantage of you when you were…impaired. Despite your best efforts.” He flashes her a wicked smile, one she’s never seen before. Shame and arousal flash hotly through her. “But I’m willing to see if the offer still stands when you’re sober.”

She whines again. Why did he have to see her like this? But she’d be a fool to let the opportunity to pass by. “Could you come back in a few hours? I think I’ll have finished dying by then. I may even have showered and won’t reek of vodka anymore.”

He nods, grins and rises. “I’ll be back at two. It’s a date.”

He’s gone before she has time to process his last word, echoing it to the empty bedroom. “…Date?”


	2. Tasertricks: Things you said when you were crying

Loki’s pacing on the other side of the room, long strides that take him from wall to wall in under three steps, and Darcy watches him morosely. His whole being radiates annoyance, but she’s struggling to find the energy to care. After all, if he doesn’t, why should she?

“I don’t understand you,” he eventually says, though he might as well as be addressing the wall he’s facing than her. He pivots and heads in the direction of the other wall, for the five seconds it will take him to reach it.

“I’m really not that difficult to understand,” she mutters. It’s the truth. She’s straightforward, as people go, and open about the way she feels.

“And yet, I am baffled. Your display earlier, for instance. Had I known you would be so…emotionally incontinent…I would have made other arrangements.”

She rolls her eyes, knowing it pisses him off. “You mean you’d have gone straight back to Asgard without telling me first? I guess I should be honored you delivered the news in person.”

He stops pacing to face her with his hands on hips. “I did not know you would take it so poorly.”

“Yeah, ‘cause my boyfriend telling me he’s leaving the planet for an indeterminate period of time is something I should be happy about. ‘Don’t worry, Darcy, I just have to pop out to Asgard to pick up some things and also finish the cold war we’ve got going with the frost giants. It may take a few centuries. Don’t wait up.’”

“That is _not_ what I said!”

“That’s the gist of it though.”

“Because I did not get to finish! Not when you decided it was such an opportune time to spring your little revelation on me–”

Her bark of angry laughter cuts him off. “‘Little revelation’. That’s lovely. I’m so glad me saying ‘I love you’ means so much to you. Don’t you have to pack?”

He deflects her brittle annoyance. “It _was_ a revelation, a very unexpected one. I did not expect such sorrow at our parting, let alone that you would _ever_ say such a thing. Not to me.”

For someone who’s been alive for so long, he often strikes her as very young, and it gentles the tone of her next words. “We’ve been dating for six months. Why are you suddenly surprised that I actually like you?”

“Because it makes you a rare soul indeed.” He sounds tired and bewildered. He approaches her chair, kneeling before her. “Did you mean it?”

Her eyes are prickling again. She sniffs. “You know I did.”

“Oh, Darcy.” The words are a sigh. “If I had known–if I had truly examined what lay between us–then I would never have agreed to leave. I thought you would be free, in my absence, to find someone more suited.”

“Don’t want to,” she mumbles sullenly around the quiver in her lips. “I just got you house trained.”

“Then I shall do all I can to return as soon as I may. But I cannot make any promises–my fate is the Allfather’s to do with as he pleases. Do not wait for me.” He rises and presses a gentle kiss to her forehead. _“My love._ ”

He’s gone, leaving only his final words as comfort.


	3. Wintershock: Things you said after you kissed me

Darcy’s not sure how long has passed. She’s been staring into space, absently rubbing her index finger against her lower lip, or sucking the lip into her mouth. The sense memory of his mouth on her own, the taste of him, is insistent, intense, and will not be ignored.

There’s more to it, of course. It wasn’t just a _kiss_. Not when it involved Bucky, the man she’s be pining after for months. Not when he was the one who’d pulled her to him and devoured her like she was the only thing keeping him anchored to the world. Not after what he’d said when he pulled away, before he _fled_.

She’d sunk into a chair with shaky knees, knowing she’d never find him if he didn’t want to be found, and waited for her heart beat to slow, for her lips to stop tingling, for the sensory overload to fade.

She considers, briefly, letting him run and keep running. She could pretend it never happened, even Steve picks up on the weird tension between them. It’ll be all avoiding eye contact and leaving the room when the other enters, until she starts dating someone else, or he snaps and kisses her again.

But she’s trying to do this ‘being an adult’ thing, and she doesn’t want to make things awkward for anyone else. Least of all Steve, who Bucky will not discuss any of this with, of that Darcy is sure. It’s hard enough to get him to talk about what he’d like for dinner.

She sighs and raises her eyes to the ceiling, even though she knows it’s unnecessary. “Friday, would you please tell Sergeant Barnes–wherever he is–that we need to discuss the events of this afternoon, and I will be in my quarters waiting for him. Let him know that if he doesn’t show up, the conversation will happen the first time our paths cross in a public place.”

“Certainly, Ms Lewis.”

She returns to her quarters and absently stares at a page in the novel she’s reading for a while, before tossing it aside and turning on the Cartoon Network. She has no idea if he’s going to turn up. He probably prefers just to avoid her entirely for the rest of eternity.

There’s a hesitant knock at her door, and she mutes the TV, unsure if she actually heard it or was imagining it. It comes again and she leaps off the sofa, scrambling to the door before pausing to smooth down her hair and attempting to gather her composure.

When she opens the door, he’s on the other side, looking like he’s ready to bolt again. She doesn’t give him the chance.

The plan was to talk this through like adults.

She grabs him by the front of the t-shirt and hauls him inside, only the element of surprise catching him off-guard and off-balance. Then she shoves him up against the wall and covers his mouth with her own.

He wraps both hands around her waist and lifts her, effortlessly, so she’s not straining on her tiptoes.

“Don’t you dare,” she says between kisses, “ever do that,” she attacks his neck, “again.”

“It’s the truth,” he replies, his voice a rumble beneath her lips.

 _I want you so bad, but I shouldn’t_ , he’d said earlier. _You should tell me to stay away._

“I’m a big girl. I make my own decisions.” It’s undermined a little by the breathiness of her words, but his hands underneath her t-shirt and brushing the length of her spine. “We are not taking that detour to clichesville.”

She’s not sure he completely understands what she just said, but he nods. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Now are we going to fool around on my sofa, or are you just going to keep holding me up like this like it’s no big deal?”

The answer was, apparently, both.


	4. Wintershock: Things you said when you were crying

The soft light of morning makes everything look different. Darcy thinks a morning like this one has no right to intrude, not after the night she’s had. It doesn’t make sense, the world at odds with her mood.

At least Bucky is still sleeping, curled up in her bed with a spare pillow cuddled to his chest. He’d almost look cute, peaceful, if it weren’t for the circles under his eyes. She wonders if when he opens them, they’ll still be red. If it were her running on this little sleep–well, she’s seen her reflection in the bathroom mirror. And she’s only suffering from an uncomfortable night on the sofa.

She creeps out to the kitchen, pulling the bedroom door shut behind her to contemplate breakfast. Maybe waking him up with the smell of frying food will be the kindest way to do it.

She’s barely got the butter melted in the pan before there’s movement out of the corner of her eye, a presence which makes her yelp and almost drop the carton of eggs she’s holding.

“Bucky, you have to stop creeping up on me!” she admonishes, setting the eggs down to reach for the chef’s knife.

He looks like crap. Attractive crap, but the combination of wispy beard, bedhead, and bloodshot eyes moves him back into the realm of mere mortal. At least she’s got a hint of a smile from him. “I can’t help it if your senses are duller than that knife.”

She tsks, but steps back to let him start cracking eggs into the pan. She only hesitates a moment before broaching the question. “How are you feeling this morning?”

He tenses a little before shrugging. “Better. You sure you don’t want to be my therapist? I prefer talking to you, and you’d get paid for it.”

She pokes at him with the spatula she’s just retrieved from the drawer. “Total conflict of interest there.”

He gives her a soft smile in return, taking the spatula away to stir the contents of the pan. “Worth a try.”

The smell of the food makes his stomach gurgle–the guy has a Hulk-sized appetite, and she grins at the sound, before returning to the topic at hand. “You know you can come talk to me anyway? Whenever you need to.”

He averts his eyes. “You don’t find it…weird? It freaks most people out.”

“Nah, although fair warning, sometimes I’m a pity cryer. But you have to admit my shoulder is made for crying on. Jane says it’s the best she’s ever used.”

His little snort is precious. “Can’t say I get like that too often. Just when…” He pauses, his eyes taking on that thousand-yard stare briefly. “Just when I have a breakthrough, and it’s not the pleasant kind.”

She pats him on the arm, trying to cover the memory of his breakdown the previous night, and the sting of guilt at inadvertently triggering it. “And you’re wrong. You aren’t any of those things–” she waves a hand vaguely “– you called yourself.”

He doesn’t reply, but she can see a frown brewing. “But what if–”

“What if you fed me and then we both went away and had showers, came back and you kissed me?”

Well, that certainly knocked the brooding out of him. He goes slack-jawed until she pokes him again, this time without the spatula. “You make it sound so easy.”

“It is. We do that, we go on a few dates, we live happily ever after. It’ll be awesome.”

“Darcy–”

“And if I ever hear you call yourself a monster again, I’m dragging you to Disneyworld and you have to dress up as the Beast.”

He swallows, then lets out a shaky laugh. “You got this all planned out, huh?”

“Nope, totally winging it. But it sounds good to me.”

“Yeah, it sounds good to me too.” He’s close enough that for a moment she wonders if he’s going to skip a few steps and jump straight to the kissing. Instead, he turns his attention back to the food. “Fair warning, I’m about to break the land-speed record for eating breakfast and showering.”

She grins up at him. “Just remember to brush your teeth.”


	5. Shieldshock: Things you said through your teeth

“What was all that about?” Darcy demands when they’re back in the safety of Steve’s apartment.

Steve gives the least nonchalant shrug ever, playing so badly at dumb that it ought to earn him a Razzie nomination. “What was what about?”

“Riiiight. If it’s going to be like that, I’m going home.”

She tries to step around him, but he shifts to block her way, his suddenly contrite face popping into view. “Sorry, I’m sorry–please don’t go.”

When she folds her arms and stares up at him, he sighs and shoves his hands into his pockets. For such a graceful man, he can be very awkward.

“You couldn’t hear what those fellas were saying–” He means the guys who’d been on watching her dance with Natasha in the bar.

“I’m pretty sure I can guess.”

“No, I really don’t–”

“Really. I’ve spent a lot of my life being catcalled. I’ve learned to ignore it.”

It was inevitable, in the dress she was wearing. The dress she’d put on for Steve, since their height difference means that when he looks down at her he can’t help but get an eyeful of cleavage, and she finds it adorable how flustered he gets.

His ears are pink, and his bottom lip is poking out in the beginnings of an unhappy pout even as he continues speaking. “Well, I could hear it pretty clearly. And I didn’t like it. It was…crass.”

“They were assholes. It’s usually a lifelong affliction. What was your excuse?”

He shuffles his feet and avoids her eyes.

“If you wanted to shut them up, you should have joined me.” That had been the whole point of the exercise–she’d been trying to coax Steve to dance with her by showing him how much fun she was having with Natasha. “Once they saw I was with someone–someone much bigger than them–they’d have gone real quiet, trust me. What you shouldn’t have done is bundle me out of the bar like I’m a naughty child, muttering all that stuff about public places.”

“That’s not what–I didn’t–I was just trying to protect you.” He knows how lame his reasoning is before he’s even finished speaking. “I’m sorry. How do I make it up to you?”

“Oh no, we’re not there yet. I think we need to understand why this pissed you off so much. You let Wanda deal with those creeps the other day on her own.”

“Yes, but she’s Wanda and she’s not…”

Darcy thinks he might spontaneously combust, the color his face has gone. “Not what?”

“Not _mine_.”

She arches an eyebrow at him, but inside she’s feeling surprisingly smug. Steve’s inner caveman should not be making her at all gleeful. “Say what?”

“I never had a girl before. I’m new to all this, and it’s nice that I get to call you mine, okay? I know I shouldn’t be admitting it, but it makes me antsy when someone else looks at you when they shouldn’t be.”

“So you’re a little possessive?”

“I guess. And it was easier to bring you home than go over and confront them about it. No, not easier…the better choice. I didn’t want to ruin anybody else’s night.”

She reaches a hand out to him, a signal that he’s almost forgiven and he can reel her in for a hug. “I don’t know how you turned that around into doing the right thing, but somehow you managed it. Though I’m not going to lie, seeing you beat up creeps does things to me.”

He frowns. “I’m not sure that’s appropriate.”

“Well, here we are, swapping confessions about inappropriate feelings. You promise to come dance with me next time you start getting all antsy, and we’ll be okay.”

His protesting whine tells her they’re going to have to talk about this some more.


	6. Wintershock: Things you said when you thought I was dying

It takes Darcy a moment to figure out why everything aches so much, why it takes a ton of effort to persuade her eyes to open, why it doesn’t feel like her bed she’s lying in. Why breathing hurts.

When she wins the battle with her eyes, the room around her is sterile and blindingly white, machinery humming and whirring softly in the background. She recognizes a hospital room when she sees one, even if the bed she’s lying in is comfier than most hotel beds she’s ever slept in.

A Tony Stark-funded hospital room then.

She tips her head to the side, gaze seeking the person she knows will be there. It takes a moment for her eyes to focus properly, but she isn’t wrong: Bucky is sitting in the chair beside the bed, his chin resting on his chest while he naps.

She doesn’t want to wake him. She’s not sure when he last slept, and if she only has the circles under his eyes to go by, it’s been a while.

Instead, she’s content to lie there and watch him. It’s a rare opportunity, given how skittish he is when he’s awake, how quickly he senses when eyes are on him and shifts out of view. Now, he doesn’t look peaceful, but he is at least still.

This man loves her, if his own confession is to be believed.

Despite the fact they’ve never held a conversation–certainly not just the two of them–she believes him. Because she’s not oblivious to when someone is watching her, either, she’s just more comfortable with letting them do it. Especially when she knows they mean her no harm. Bucky has a fearsome reputation, but of all the things she’s seen in his gaze when he stares at her, none of them led her to believe he would ever hurt her.

Commit horrifying acts of violence against anyone who sought to injure her? Sure. She’d witnessed that with her own eyes. Right before he cradled her prone body, begged her not to die, and whispered that he loved her.

She’s not sure how to take it. Even though she knew he watched her, it was hard to calibrate the interest she’d suspected with feelings which ran so deep. Especially in the face of the interest for him she’d fought so hard to pack away.

Footsteps approach down the corridor, a precise _click-clacking_ against the tiles. She turns her head towards the door, and beside her Bucky stirs. Something tells her he’s a light sleeper.

She doesn’t get much of a chance to look at him when the nurse enters, giving her a rundown of her injuries (who needs a spleen anyway?) and checking her vitals. But she knows he’s there, a silent, solid presence watching the proceedings. Only when the nurse leaves does he clear his throat.

That’s all he does. If he’s considering speaking, he’s taking his time to do so.

“Hi,” she eventually says, to break the silence. He nods in response, and it takes another minute before he uses his words.

“I’m glad you’re okay.” He doesn’t make eye contact with her.

“Me too.” Her voice is little more than a scrape. “What’s the saying? ‘You should see the other guy?’”

He flinches, and she’s not sure there’s much left of the other guy to look at. “I should–” He stands up, scraping the chair across the floor and heading for the door.

“So we’re not even going to talk about it?”

She watches the muscles in his back shift as he almost pauses, but then he’s pulling it open.

“If you up and leave now, I will follow you,” she follows. She means it, despite the fact that she’s not entirely sure she can walk.

“I’ll be gone before you can sit up.” But he’s turned back to face her, the thunder on his face reminding her of all the stories Steve’s told them about Bucky getting pissed with him over the stupid stunts he pulls.

“Won’t stop me trying. Do you want that on your conscience?” She shifts, indicating she’s about to move, and he shoves the door shut abruptly. She cocks her head in the direction of the chair, wincing when it hurts, and he hurries back to it. He’s probably afraid of what she’ll do–to herself–if he doesn’t do what she says.

“Listen, we don’t have to talk about _things_ right now,” she says. “Just don’t abandon me to boredom in my hour of need. Entertain me.”

He shrugs. “Don’t have a lot to say. Not anymore.”

“So tell me about Steve. I’ve heard about all the times he’s nearly given you a heart attack from his point of view–what about yours?” She reaches her hand out for him, resting it on the edge of the bed. He stares at it like she’s tossed a grenade down.

He takes a deep breath. “He ever tell you ‘bout the time he jumped out of a plane?”

“ _Which_ time?” She wiggles her fingers until he lifts his own hand, tentatively covering hers. His skin is warm, calloused. She grips it with all the strength she has and he lifts his gaze to hers, the briefest glimpse of peace settling in it.


	7. Tony/Darcy: Things you said under the stars and in the grass

It’s definitely the ending of something, more than just their last night here. Asgard has been wonderful, the trip of a lifetime, but for all the grandeur of the palace, Darcy’s found herself out in the gardens. Away from the bustle, she’s doing a little stargazing, right in the centre of a meadow.

Tomorrow they go home, and she’s not sure if she’ll ever get to return. Jane’s staying, her newly-minted marriage to Thor making her a fully-fledged Asgardian citizen. Darcy might return to visit but this feels like a parting of ways. The end of a chapter, or an era, or whatever other cliche could sum this up. She’s out of a job, too.

But the stars are beautiful: white diamonds glittering across a blanket of rich sable. They weren’t even this clear in Norway.

“Do you recognize any of them?” says a voice behind her. “Because I don’t recognize any of them. Astronomy was never my thing, but I looked at the sky like any other kid.” Darcy turns to find Tony strolling up the path towards her. “JARVIS taught me the main constellations, and there’s no trace of them up there. Except–what if there is? What if all our stars are up there, they’re just in completely different places? Or maybe they are entirely new stars, ones no other humans will ever see.”

Darcy offers him a soft smile. This is the other thing in her life coming to a close, and it never really opened.

“Then we really ought to make the most of it.”

Tony manages a whole minute of silence, which might be a personal best for him.

“Where will you go?” he asks.

She shrugs. “I was thinking of heading back to London. It’s expensive, but there are good options for getting my post-grad degree there.”

“You know, Stark Industries offers comprehensive scholarships.”

“I’m sure they do. I’m also sure I need to get out of the world of superheroes and learn to live among the mortals again.”

He makes a dismissive noise. “Sounds tedious.”

She rocks on her toes, an insistent breeze bringing a chill with it. “Sounds perfect. There’s nothing super about me; that world will ruin me in the end.”

“I disagree. I think there’s _plenty_ super about you.” This may be the sincerest she’s ever seen him, and she knows her answering smile is wistful. He notices it. “If I were ten years younger–”

“Twenty.”

“–and if Thor wouldn’t strike me down with a thunderbolt at the very idea.”

“Then maybe. Yeah. I know.”

She lowers her face and her gaze from the sky, turning back towards the glow of the palace in the distance.

“But you can dance with me tonight, right?” she says, reaching her hand back towards him. He nods, curling his fingers around hers, and they leave the meadow behind.


	8. Natasha/Steve: Things you said at 1am (part 1)

Sometimes Steve forgot that Natasha was an ordinary human being.

Okay. Perhaps ‘ordinary’ wasn’t the right word, but she didn’t have any serum in her blood, no infinity-stone induced powers, no gamma radiation mutating her cells. She was as nature had intended, despite her body and her skills being impressively honed.

Which is why he shouldn’t have been surprised when 48 hours without sleep started to take its toll in a way it didn’t on him. He’d kept pushing forward, adrenaline sweeping away any hint of fatigue, and assumed she was keeping up with him.

It was the giggling which gave it away. The only time Natasha giggled was if she was playing a part, and even then she tried to mold covers who wouldn’t be natural gigglers. So when the bubbling laughter came, unbidden, at 1am in a ditch beside the road, it definitely caught his attention.

His gaze snapped to her, expecting her to be sighting down the barrel of her gun, watching for approaching enemy personnel. Instead, she was staring into the middle-distance, a grin lighting up her features, softening them despite the graze on her chin and the smudge of dirt on her cheek.

“Steve…” she murmured, and the laugh that followed was a tinkling, glittering thing that he’d never heard before. “They’re beautiful, but you know I’m not really a flowers kind of girl. Ammo’s my thing.”

He froze, aware that she wasn’t really present anymore, but he wasn’t sure what to do. Should he shake her?

She continued the one-sided conversation before he could make a decision. “The ring’s a miniature Bite? You _do_ know me.” Her voices dropped several notes, down to that husky base he liked more than he should. “Thank you. It means a lot to me, my love.”

He almost lost it at the last few words. He wasn’t sure anymore which one of them was hallucinating, because of all the things he’d ever expected Natasha–collected, professional Agent Romanoff–to say to him, that was not on the list. They were friends, she respected him, and he respected her enough to never, ever broach the subject. He did covert pining expertly.

The sound of tires on gravel–a mile away, maybe more, snapped him back the present. He needed Natasha in the present too, so he reached out a hesitant hand to her shoulder. It took a few shakes before she blinked, the world of her imagination giving world to cold mud and fresh aches.

For a moment, she looked shattered, forlorn. But she would not be Natasha Romanoff if she couldn’t pull herself together, push her feelings south, even when running on empty.

“Romanoff,” he said, ignoring the flinch at him using her last name. “We’re abandoning the mission. You need to sleep.”

“No, Steve. We’ve been working towards this for weeks–”

“And I can’t let you go in there in this state. You blanked out for a minute. If we carry on without some rest, you’ll end up injured or worse.”

She looked like she was about to argue further, but even the movement of leaning towards him seemed to make her reconsider. From the way she adjusted her stance, he suspected she’d been hit by a wave of vertigo.

“Come on.” He pushed himself from his knees to a half-crouch, still not stupid enough to stick his head over the side of the ditch and get it blown off. “We retreat to the safe house and come up with a new plan tomorrow. Can you move under your own speed?”

“Of course.” She slipped away into the gloom, as if sleep deprivation hadn’t already taken its toll, and he barreled after her, anxious that she wasn’t as alert as normal.

Tomorrow, after sleep, she’d forget she’d imagined whatever made her smile that way. He wouldn’t, but he’d pretend it never happened. After all, he _did_ do covert pining so well.


	9. Natasha/Steve: Things you said when you thought I was asleep (part 2)

Natasha had always been a very light sleeper, but she wasn’t sure anyone could sleep through the loud snore which rumbled through the room. At first, she thought it was thunder, but a quick assessment of the situation made it clear that it was actually the supersoldier beside her. **  
**

Perhaps not quite beside her. She was on the cot, he was on the floor next to it, using his bag as a pillow. The original plan had been to sleep in shifts, hence only bringing one portable cot, but they’d both earned some slumber overnight while waiting for the extraction team.

The fact that he was snoring proved how tired he was.

She remembered bits and pieces of the night before, her memory foggy. They’d abandoned the mission, and it was down to her exhaustion. That was why she got the cot.

She’d found it hard to sleep even when she’d finally collapsed into it, her head alive with the implications of whether she’d spoken out loud and what it was she’d said. She couldn’t even remember the hallucination properly, just the feelings it had evoked–a moment of quiet happiness–but if she’d let anything slip…

Steve answered that for her, as she lay curled onto one side with her back to him. She was focussing on her breathing, keeping it deep and even, willing sleep to claim her, when he started talking.

It was evident from his first words that he thought she was already asleep.

“You know, I don’t even know if what you saw is something you want, or whether exhaustion had scrambled your brains so badly that you got stuck with me invading your happy place.” He’s trying to be quiet, but the rich baritone always carries. “But I gotta tell you…I’m hoping for the former. Not that I ever will actually tell you. Kinda hope you’ve forgotten the whole thing in the morning. You’re the first woman I could ever really talk to, and I don’t want to mess that up.”

In the end, his voice is what had soothed her to sleep.

She wanted to let his slumber continue, aware that he needed the rest as much as she did. Truth be told, she hadn’t gotten all the sleep she needed, but it was enough to recharge. Now, she wanted to get out of here, their base half a mile from the Hydra unit they’d planned to take out feeling more vulnerable than it was.

Or maybe it was her feeling vulnerable.

She sat up, retrieving her weapons from where she’d stashed them on the ledge above her head, shoving them back into the various holsters around her body. Though she tried to be quiet, the movement seemed to rouse Steve. He rolled over and blinked at her through the darkness.

“The extraction team here?” he mumbled around the vestiges of sleep.

“Not yet.”

He checked his watch and peered up at her. “You only got five hours.”

“It’s enough. You can sleep more if you want.” But he’d sat up too, running his hand through his hair. It didn’t really get messy during the night, which she’d never been able to understand. Hers…well, she’d got more important things to worry about than her hair right now.

She caught the glance he gave her in her peripheral vision, noting the wistfulness chased away quickly away. She turned to him before she could think her words through properly.

“I heard you, last night,” she confessed, and winced as the words slipped free. Maybe she hadn’t had enough sleep after all.

But secrets. She was fed up of living her life wrapped in secrets.

“It was definitely a thing I wanted,” she admits.

She rose from the cot, ready to start stripping it back down into its portable parts, but he stopped her with a hand around her wrist.

“Then why…?”

She shrugged, shaking him loose. “I’m not sure you can handle all of me.” She realized how that sounds, and rushed to clarify. “The dark parts, the history. The things I’ve never shown you. I think they’d change your mind about me.”

He shook his head. “Here I was worrying you couldn’t handle me. But I know more about you than I think you do. You aren’t as mysterious as you like to think you are.”

She cocked an eyebrow towards him at the last, but whatever her reply was going to be, they’re interrupted by the chime on Steve’s phone to let them know the quinjet was approaching.

“Wheel’s up,” she said instead, hauling the cot onto her back and picking up her roll of supplies.

“So you want to go back to ignoring this?” he asked incredulously, gesturing between them.

She wanted to ignore him. She wanted to ignore the little stutter her heart gave, the flood of butterflies inside her. She didn’t want to look him the eye. “I think we’ll tear each other apart.”

“You’re scared,” he replied, proving that he really did know her better than she thought. “I get it. All I’m saying is we should talk it over. We could be good–”

“Or we could be the death of each other.”

“Have you ever known me to back down from a challenge?”

She couldn’t resist smiling at that. “Then we talk it through. When we’re home.”

“That’s all I’m asking.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

They headed out towards the rooftop together, but not before Steve got in one last comment. “And Nat, I promise to always get you ammo instead of flowers.”


	10. Howard Stark/Darcy Lewis: Things you said when you thought I was asleep

Darcy stretches her legs along the mattress, easing the ache in her calves, as the first rays of dawn peek through the crack in the curtains. She’s already been awake for a good half hour, her brain whirring into action at the first chime of bird song.

It is, all things going well, her last day here. Not just in the this bed, in this house, but in this time.

Howard sleeps beside her, and she doesn’t want to disturb him. She suspects he got even less slumber than she did, his mind running over last minute calculations even after she’d succumbed.

It’s for the best that she’s leaving. No matter what he said last night, someday soon he’s going to meet a woman called Maria. She’ll be the one to change him, or at least the one who changes his mind about marriage.

Darcy’s aware, based on the occasional thing Tony’s mentioned about his childhood, that things weren’t always great between them, but she doesn’t know any relationship which is smooth sailing all the time. That doesn’t matter anyway: it’s going to happen, unless she does something to fuck it up, and since that might erase Tony from existence she’s pretty keen not to.

She wonders what Tony says when she tells him she’s met his dad.

Not that she will mention _this_ to him; the burgeoning romance about to be cut short. Imagine that: Howard Stark finally falling for someone, a girl who knows all about his ways and expecting to be another notch in his bedpost, but he’s the girl he has to send back to the future.

She hopes the device he’s built to power the Time Gem works. She does not want to end up as atoms scattered across the universe.

She hopes now that he’s gained the ability to tell someone he loves them, albeit when he thinks they are deep in sleep, that he will keep practising. Howard’s a lonely man, cut adrift by his genius and fear of people taking advantage of him.

She hopes that when she’s returned to her own time, when Howard is nothing but dust, that she will find someone else to whisper those words to her.


	11. Wintershock: Things you said when you were scared

It takes Darcy a week to track him down. She knows Bucky’s avoiding her and that if he doesn’t want to be found, she’s going to fail, but she hasn’t spent months cultivating a friendship with the Black Widow via the medium of cookies for nothing.

In the end, she creeps into the room Natasha has directed her to, expecting him to bolt when he sees her coming. Instead, he glares at her over the duct tape covering his mouth.

“Um,” she says. This is not an auspicious start. “Nat may have gone a little overboard…”

She sets to peeling the tape from his mouth as slowly as she can. The glare’s gone, and instead he’s avoiding her eyes, tapping his fingers impatiently on the arms of the chair he’s tied to.

“I think you may have got the wrong impression,” she begins, taking advantage of her–literally–captive audience. “Yes, I was terrified, but I had every right to be. I had no idea what was going on.”

His mouth is free now, and she bends down to work at the restraints on his feet. It looks like chain, but a relatively thin chain that’s been tied into knots. Elaborate knots. She needs bolt cutters, but works to try and untangle the metal anyway. If Nat intended for her to use bolt cutters, she’d have left them behind.

Darcy’s concentrated silence gives him the room to begin talking. “You begged me not to hurt you. Seems pretty clear cut to me.” His voice is gruff, but when she glances upwards, he still refuses to meet her gaze. She knows he’s hurt.

“What I actually said was ‘Oh God, don’t hurt me’, and it was directed at everyone in the room at that point. Which was mostly Hydra goons, and you tossing them around. I figured that giving you a heads up I was there would make sure you didn’t toss them at _me_.”

“Of course I knew you were there. That was the whole reason _I_ was there. The rest of the team was still assembling but I couldn’t wait for them.”

She pauses in working one of the knots loose (she’s untangled a lot of jewelry chains in her time, and this is very much like that) to frown up at him. “How did you know I was there?”

He makes the mistake of looking her in the eye. His jaw slams shut, and he shrugs in a failed attempt at nonchalance. She narrows her eyes and gives the chain a sharp tug, which slides the knot open but also makes him hiss as it tightens the metal against his skin.

“You know if you don’t answer me, I’ll just leave you here until Nat takes pity on you.”

Bucky huffs, apparently weighing up whether it’s an idle threat. “As soon as the attack was announced, I checked your tracker.”

She rewards for him his honesty by releasing one of his feet. She shuffles over on her knees to start work on the other one. “That’s kind of sweet.”

His answering grunt doesn’t sound convinced.

“I will admit,” she continues, “that seeing you in full-on fight mode is a little…scary. I knew you were a take-no-prisoners kind of guy, but seeing it in front of me was a whole other thing.” This foot was easier, now she’s got the hang of the knot. She yanks the chain clear and rises on her haunches to work on his hands. “That doesn’t mean I ever thought you would hurt me.”

He doesn’t look convinced, so she thinks fuck it and let’s her mouth run away with her.

“Honestly, it was kind of hot.”

She can feel the blush burning her cheeks before she’s finished saying it, but it’s worth it for the expression on his face. He’s gaping, his ears turning pink, and when she grins he starts blinking at her. She’s pretty sure she’s caused a cognitive shutdown.

In fact, he doesn’t respond until she’s got both of his hands free, the chains clunking to the floor while she scoots away and to her feet. Then, in a whirlwind of movement, she’s pressed up against the wall, his arms caging her in.

“Are you s _ure_ I don’t scare you?” he growls, and she can only manage a whimper in response. It’s not a whimper of fear.

“I’m sure,” she manages to breathe, before grabbing a fistful of his t-shirt and pulling his mouth down to hers.


End file.
